Mrs. Clinton came in, looking much the same as usual, except that she was paler. She sat down at the tea-table and said, "Don't cry, Joan dear. Probyn says that there are no signs of Bay Laurel's having come down, so it was probably not a bad fall, and I expect father will be home soon."
But Joan knew too much to be comforted in this way, and her imagination was working. She threw herself on her mother and sobbed, "If f-father had fallen and B-bay Laurel hadn't, he'd have kept hold of the reins, unless he was too b-badly hurt."
Mrs. Clinton said nothing, but drew her to her, and they sat, for the most part in silence, and waited, for a long time.
Presently Joan, who had been sitting with her head on Mrs. Clinton's shoulder, started up and said, "There! there! I heard wheels." Then she began to sob uncontrollably.
Mrs. Clinton got up. The sound of wheels was now plain outside. Joan clung to her, and cried, "Oh, don't go, mother. You don't know what you may see. Oh, please don't go."
Her cries frightened the rest. They heard the clang of the heavy bell in the back regions and voices and steps in the hall outside. None of them knew what would be brought into it. Even Mrs. Clinton was paralysed in her movements for a moment, and did not know what to do with the terrified child clinging to her. The door opened and Joan shrieked. Then the Squire walked into the room with his hat on and his arm bound up in a black sling over his red coat. "Hulloa! What's this?" he exclaimed in a voice not quite so strong as ordinary. "Nothing to make a fuss about. I took a nasty toss, and I've broken my collar-bone."
CHAPTER XXVII
THE RUN OF THE SEASON
The breaking of a collar-bone is not a very serious matter. Men have been known to suffer the mishap and continue for a time the activity that brought it about without being any the worse. But to a man of the Squire's age and weight the shock he had sustained was not altogether a light one, and when he had reassured his anxious family as to his comparatively perfect safety, he retired to his bed and kept to it for a few days. It was the first time in his life that such a thing had happened to him, and he did not take kindly to the confinement. But it was eased of some of its rigour, after the first day, during which he suffered from a slight fever, by his making his big bedroom an audience chamber, in the manner of a bygone age, and most people in the house, as well as a good many from outside it, were bidden to sit with him and entertain him in turn.